1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera equipped with a shake correction mechanism such as a digital still camera and a digital video camera loaded with a shake correction mechanism for correcting shake of the camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
A shake correction mechanism of swinging an image taking device is known, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-110929. The shake correction mechanism disclosed in the publication is of an active type in which part or entirety of an optical system is swung so as to correct misalignment of optical axis on the basis of a shake of the camera. In the shake correction mechanism, a lens dedicatedly used for shake correction is not required, and shake correction can be realized in a compact camera capable of high-quality image photographing. In the shake correction mechanism, an oscillating force of oscillating the image taking device in a direction perpendicular to the optical axis is applied to the image taking device by a piezoelectric actuator or a like device provided on the side of the image taking device.
In the publication, the shake correction mechanism is built in the casing of the camera body in such a manner that a shake correction unit provided with a driving section for applying an oscillating force to the image taking device to oscillate the image taking device in the direction perpendicular to the optical axis, and a control circuit board loaded with an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), i.e., a semiconductor integrated circuit device for image processing, as well as a driving control circuit for controlling the driving section are aligned to each other in the optical axis direction. The control circuit board and the shake correction unit (image taking device) are electrically connected with each other by a flexible wiring circuit board.
The camera with the shake correction mechanism disclosed in the publication has a large thickness in the optical axis direction of the camera because the shake correction unit and the control circuit board are aligned to each other in the casing in the optical axis direction of the camera, which is a hindrance against miniaturization of the camera. In view of the above, there is proposed an idea of arranging the shake correction unit and the control circuit board substantially on the same plane perpendicular to the optical axis. Such an arrangement, however, entails exact positional alignment of these two members in view of the fact that a driving section such as a piezoelectric actuator is arranged on the side of the image taking device. It is highly likely that noises may be picked up easily owing to the structure, or the size of the camera in a direction perpendicular to the optical axis direction may be increased.